Phils Willing To Eat About $50MM Of Howard’s Salary

The Phillies are willing to take on about $50MM of Ryan Howard’s remaining salary in a trade, Sports On Earth’s Anthony Castrovince hears. That’s most of the $60MM remaining on the two years left on Howard’s contract, so a team trading for him would essentially only pay him $5MM per season for two years.

The Phillies’ efforts to find a new home for Howard have thus far been unsuccessful, but perhaps in the wake of Cliff Lee’s injury, they could be more motivated to deal Howard and speed up their rebuild. Howard has a 20-team no-trade clause and can block trades to all teams except the Rangers, Rays, Orioles, Tigers, Red Sox, Angels, Yankees, Royals, and Mariners. It’s more likely that an American League team would have interest in Howard than a National League team, but as MLBTR’s Jeff Todd noted in January, many of the clubs to which the Phillies can trade Howard without his approval are not particularly strong fits.